


kinship

by contrequirose



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (s), Arthritis, Disabled Character, Ensemble Cast, Gen, Mental Health Issues, everyone in the mighty nein is disabled and you can't stop me, happy disability pride month!, not really cane user beauregard but walking stick user beauregard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25090738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contrequirose/pseuds/contrequirose
Summary: It wasn’t always like this. Not like – well. She says it, like there’s something wrong with her – and her parents would say that, her teachers at the Soul would say that, like this was a chain limiting her, dragging her down.She knows better, though. This is no more a hindrance than the fact that she can’t use magic, than the fact that her fists are a better weapon than a dagger, than the fact that she drinks more than she should and fights more than is necessary.It hurts, because of course it does, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that bad. As always, she’s felt worse.(beau and disability, happy disability pride month!)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 123





	kinship

It wasn’t always like this. Not like – well. She says _it_ , like there’s something wrong with her – and her parents would say that, her teachers at the Soul would say that, like this was a chain limiting her, dragging her down.

She knows better, though. This is no more a hindrance than the fact that she can’t use magic, than the fact that her fists are a better weapon that a dagger, than the fact that she drinks more than she should and fights more than is necessary.

It hurts, because of course it does, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that bad.

As always, she’s felt worse.

* * *

She was fourteen, when it happened. Young, full of pride and feeling like she could touch the stars if only she jumped high enough. If she could just try hard enough, that the gates would open and that she could fly away.

She spent a lot of time sitting on the roof, that year. Watching the stars, waiting away the hours til morning to listen to the birds and dream about leaving. About being old enough to choose her own clothes – pants instead of skirts, a jacket instead of the dresses and cloaks her mother dresses her in, hands pressing on her shoulder as they stare into a mirror, her mother whispering “You look so pretty like this, better like this, don’t you think so, Beauregard?”

There are only so many tears she can rip in her clothes before her parents get suspicious.

But she is fourteen, and she is hiding, because she got in a fight with the Boggret family’s eldest son, that had come parading over and took her hand without asking and _kissed it,_ like she was some prize to be one – she’s only fourteen, for god’s sake.

She had kicked him in the nuts. It’s what he deserved, but with the way her father had started yelling –

Hiding was the only option. Which is why she’s on the roof.

No one knows she can get up here, not yet at least. She sneaks through the dormer window in the servant’s quarter of the attic, and she sits on the warm tiles near the west chimney because it’s a good place to watch the sunset.

The sun is setting, now, as she sits, knees to her chest with her chin tucked over them. She was still gangly then. Bruises on her knees from where she would skid and trip in the hallway, scuffs on her shoes from sprinting through the woods.

She’s been up there for hours. No one’s found her yet, but… she can hear the yelling.

Yelling that’s getting _closer –_

She whips around, too-long hair in a too-tight braid hitting her as she turns, and stares in horror at the sight of her father and the head of their guards climbing through the window, spitting and sputtering –

They see her, and her heart jumps to a gallop in her ears.

“Beauregard,” her father says, low and dangerous, eyes and face set in a glower, and she makes a choice.

It was a stupid one.

A really, _really_ stupid one.

But they are coming, and she is on the roof, and she is fourteen, and scared, and wishes that she could fly away from here.

She turns towards the sunset, and she jumps.

* * *

It’s not that bad, really. She broke her leg in the fall, sprained her ankle as well, but it could have been worse. It healed, eventually. (Her parents hadn’t paid for a healer til it got infected and she had been sobbing for help, but that was then, and this is now.) It still hurts, like someone shoved glass shards in there that grind along her knee and hip, but it could have been worse.

When she leaves the Soul, it’s with better control over the pain more than anything. It hurts, and it will always hurt, but it’s easier to ignore. Easier to push down and focus on until it’s a burning ember that fuels her. That keeps her marching on.

She wasn’t lying, when she first met Yasha. When she told her that her staff – it’s a weapon, first and foremost, but. It’s easier to walk when she has it. Easier to balance, easier to do – to do a lot of things.

Yasha still takes it, because that’s her job, and she’s not – she wasn’t mad about that. It was mostly a joke. With an added benefit that she was carried in by a very large, _very_ hot woman.

The zombies ruined the ambiance, though. Just a bit.

Life becomes a whirlwind, after that. She sticks with those people – they name themselves, eventually, and it’s hysterical and sad and strange all at once, that she has friends, now. People around her that she doesn’t hate.

They do a lot of walking, though. She hates that. They seem to keep losing their horses.

It’s not until they’re in Zadash that someone actually asks. She shouldn’t be surprised that it’s Caleb, but. She is, anyways.

Jester and Fjord know without asking, because they saw her crying over hitting her knee, that first day in Trostenwald, hauling crates for those shitty fucking ale families. They hadn’t needed to ask, and she hadn’t bothered to tell them.

Yasha – she doesn’t know if Yasha knows, but she doesn’t really care, either way. They both are carrying a lot of secrets.

She’d rather knee Mollymauk in the stomach than tell him, not after what he said when they first met. He’s not _as_ much of an asshole as she first pegged him for, but anyone who wants to see her limp just to make himself giggle is at least somewhat of an asshole.

But – Nott and Caleb, though –

She doesn’t understand them. Doesn’t know if she ever will, but she wants to. She presses too hard.

Listening to Caleb talk about his past is exhausting, because he talks – so calmly. Like this is something he’s accepted. Like something that wasn’t one of the worst fucking things she’s ever heard.

She – she can’t understand how much that must hurt him. It’s not the same.

But when the storytelling is over, when Caleb is staring at her, eyes lingering on her knee, on where she has a white-knuckled grip on her staff –

She isn’t surprised, when he asks for a story in return, but she’s –

It’s not the same. Both things suck, of course they do, but there’s no comparing what she went through and what Caleb went through.

It’s –

They aren’t… kinder, after she tells them. But they’re closer. Nott offers her pain potions, the same ones she makes for Caleb – because she hadn’t noticed, because she hadn’t been looking, but Caleb spends rainy days and mornings and evenings and all hours rubbing his hands like he’s trying to peel something out of them, rubbing and scratching at his arms like there’s something growing and crawling under his skin that needs out. She doesn’t know what. She doesn’t need to know what, because she can guess, because Caleb brushes over torture that lasted years with a single word and she knows when he doesn’t want to talk about something.

The potions help, though. They help a lot. Enough to make the long walks, because they lost their fucking horses _again_ , more tolerable.

She helps Caleb warm his hands, on cold mornings, and smiles at him when he offers her cloths that he’s warmed between his own fire-touched fingers at night.

They are not the same. But there is kinship, there.

She appreciates it, and she knows he does the same.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm disabled, there are never enough fics with disabled characters, and i will take any scrap of info given to me and turn it into a world. sorry for not updating my other wips - this pandemic continues to kick my ass, but i'll try and update soon. leave a comment!


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